Eglington and Zietsman win 2nd 6-hour event

Bike SA - July 1985

An impressive entry of 22 bikes was received for the 2nd round of the 6 hour series at the Zwartkops raceway near Pretoria.

Front runners were expected to be the Els/Boshoff RD350, the Coetzee/Koedooder KX250 single, Eglington and Zietsman and Robbie Petersen and Giles Palmer on FT500 Honda. Zwartkops also reverberated to the thunder of a Ducati for a change as Hillex Litho had entered their spare bike for Brendt van der Stadt and Trajan Grobler. The Ducati was running on an experimental tyre, fitted untried for the race.

At 10.05 am the race was on and almost immediately Zietsman sent the RD350 through the hay bales in the sweep. The resultant pit stop dropped them to 13th place.

After 1 hour, Els/Boshoff led on Kobie's Kawasaki GPz550 which replaced the RD350 that they were to have raced with about 2 minutes to spare. The Yamaha had water pump trouble and they rushed back to Attie Els Motors to fetch the GPz with the Kyalami used tyres on and all. 2nd was Coetzee/Koedooder on the Kawasaki Super Single followed by Brendt van der Stadt/Trajan Grobler Hillex Ducati. In 4th place was a little guy in Robbie Petersen's leathers riding the wheels off an FT500 Honda.

At one and a half hours, the Ducati broke its chain which shot forward and destroyed the casings. The bike had been lapping at mid 36 second laps and was proving very competitive on such a short circuit. The experimental Continental tyres were wearing very well. Meanwhile Eglington/Zietsman were up to 3rd place, 3 laps down and Coetzee and Koedooder in the lead from Els and Boshoff.

At the 3 hour make, Coetzee/Koedooder were leading but on the same lap as Eglington/Zietsman. Els/Boshoff were beginning to notice alarming wear at their second hand rear tyre and 1 lap down in third.

At 4.5 hours Coetzee/Koedooder with a 2 lap lead pitted with a cracked fuel tank which was taped up and then in a series of maladies including a sticking throttle cable dropped them out of contention.

Zietsman meanwhile introduced a new element into the 6 hour races by calling in Eglington and changing the rear wheel with a new tyre in 3 minutes 22 seconds.

Cobie Els was on the GPz 550 Kawasaki with a two and a half lap lead but he could go no quicker than 39 second laps as the rear tyre was extremely worn down by now.

Eglington on the Scorpio Yamaha dropped his times to low 36 second laps in the chase and by the 5 hour mark he was down only 1 lap. With 20 minutes to go, Eglington/Zietsman were in the lead and Els. Boshoff had to let them go as Kobie was by now slithering around virtually on canvas.

Moving up to 3rd after a very consistent ride was Els/Wallis on another RD350, lapping at 37 seconds which is a very competitive time. Golden Oldie, Keith Poulton sharing with Burger/Da Silva brought their RD350 into 4th.

RESULTS:

Eglington/Zietsman - Yamaha 350 - 1st
C & G Els/Boshoff - Kawasaki GPz 500 - 2nd
Els/Wallis -Yamaha 350 - 3d
Poulton/Burger/Da Silva - Yamaha 350 - 4th
Sanders/Lobb - Honda XR500 - 5th
 

See all the racing Photo Galleries >>

Back to News Desk >>